Should MMO studios disclose the odds of winning lockbox priz

Every once in a while in an MMO, the desire to play with numbers grips me, like the time I hand-crafted a thousand drinks in Star Wars Galaxies to test whether sub-comp assembly mattered as much as theorists claimed. (It didn’t.)

I am not alone in my insanity. Massively OP reader The_Grand_Nagus tipped us off to an equally determined/nutty Star Trek Online player, who recently put his napkin math skills to work on a much more important problem than video game booze: video game gambling. He opened 10,000 lockboxes in STO to estimate the odds of pulling out a dreadnought. (It’s about 1%.)

That led The_Grand_Nagus — and me — to wonder why MMO studios don’t (and whether they should) disclose the odds of winning when you’re cracking open their gambleboxes.


Here in the US, different states have different governing rules for different categories of gambling. For example, most lotteries are required to post odds. Most casinos aren’t. Then again, would there even be a point to publishing the odds when knowing the odds doesn’t usually stop people from gambling anyway?

What do you think? Should MMO studios disclose the odds of winning prizes in lockboxes?

TH